Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Black Cat #4

[Marvel Comics, 7.3]

Caroline Pruett:
When this miniseries started, I wrote that I wanted to come away from it with a strong sense of who Felicia Hardy is and what makes her tick. In that sense, I didn’t find it entirely successful. After four issues, she’s still an enigma to me, and I keep wondering if I missed something by not reading the “Grim Hunt” storyline of Amazing Spider-Man that this tied into. So, as a self-contained character piece, this didn’t accomplish exactly what I wanted when I picked it up. However, as a rollicking romp of a heist story, beautifully penciled by Javier Pulido, this miniseries delivers. It’s going to make a great TPB, the kind you can hand to people and prove that comics are fun. And, if the story doesn’t give a clear sense of why Felicia is the way she is, it does show us plenty about how she works. Giving the character her own supporting cast (including a real trooper of a mom) adds a lot of dimensions to her world that don’t involve her relationship with Spider-Man. Jen van Meter has laid the groundwork, we can only hope, for more fun and suspenseful Black Cat stories in the future.
[7]

Jeff Stolarcyk:
This has been a solid miniseries and, as much as I love Jen Van Meter’s indie work, this is just one more reason why I would be ecstatic to see her helm a superhero ongoing instead of handling fill-ins, miniseries and co-features. This mini has been a strong portrait of a sometimes unlikeable character. I only wish it had come out weekly during the “Grim Hunt” arc of Spider-Man that it ties into.
[7]

Chris Walsh:
This miniseries finishes on a strong note, thanks to an plotting that feels tighter than some of rest of the series, Javier Pulido and Matt Hollingsworth’s continued excellent art (I love good, “cartoony” art in a comic far more than hyper-real art any day), and an ending that is satisfying, both for the lead character and for the story itself. I appreciated the way that it tied in with the “Grim Hunt” story from ASM, without ever feeling like one book really depended on the other to make sense. I have to say also that I think part of the reason that I liked this final issue more than the others was the limited appearances by Felicia’s crew — her interactions with the Kravens, Spidey, and even her mother, were more interesting to me. A solid finale.
[8]